Psychic Abilities

Are psychic phenomena real? What about non-local consciousness (e.g. consciousness that transcends space and time)?
To the skeptic it is easy to rule out many “psychic” phenomena of mind as wishful thinking because science currently
has no solid theory for their mechanisms. This of course is in spite of the fact that there is a growing body of evidence
that these phenomenon actually exist. These skeptics subscribe to the philosophy of materialism.
They assert that the mind (our consciousness) is epiphenomena of the brain processes.
However this is an assumption that has never been proven in fact despite the large effort and numerous credible attempts
to locate the seat of consciousness in the brain in the last few decades. In addition, the materialist position fails to
account for many phenomena of consciousness reported throughout history and especially in the modern era.
A few of these include: Mystical Experiences(MEs), spiritually transformative experiences (STEs), Near Death Experiences
(NDEs), Out-of-Body-Experiences (OBEs), other transcendent experiences, exceptional abilities of mind, non-local mind
(e.g. remote viewing, mediumship, etc.), terminal lucidity, automatic writing and many other phenomena.

Interest has been growing in seeking an alternative to materialism where the mind (e.g. consciousness) extends well beyond
and pre-exists the brain. It proposes that our full consciousness has access to an expansive reality that is kept mostly
hidden from our ordinary waking consciousness. It posits that the mind uses the brain to manipulate the body and the external
(physical) world. In other words the mind / brain combination acts as a reducing valve or filter to limit access to the whole
of reality to prevent overwhelming the physical brain and limiting ordinary consciousness for the survival benefit that this
limiting view provides.

A growing body of evidence suggests that this alternative to materialism is a viable one to the assumption
of materialism and that it provides an explanation for many, if not all, of the phenomena described above.
Furthermore with this model there is no reason to consider that the physical death of the brain implies the demise of some
fundamental aspect of our consciousness.

We offer the following categories of non ordinary mental phenomena as evidence worthy of further scientific investigation and study. We consider
many of these phenomena to be any ability of the mind (e.g. consciousness) that either extends beyond the ordinary bounds of
space and time (e.g. non-locality) or is not generally found in ordinary consciousness. These phemonenon are catagorized into the following general groups and are discussed in more detail throughout this website:

Extrasensory Perception (ESP) - the general category of expanded awareness involved in obtaining information about events through non-ordinary
perceptual mechanisms. This includes:

Psychokinesis (also known as PK) is the general category of expanded intentionality which involves
the direct mental interaction to affect external physical objects (either biotic or abiotic) or events

Teleportation

Materialization / dematerialization

Levitation

Non-Local consciousness - Phenomena suggestive of consciousness to exist beyond
the physical bounds of the brain / body system. It includes the survival of some aspect of consciousness
outside the body:

A long-held assumption held by mainstream science is that the worlds of the subjective experience (what we experience
in our minds) and objective experience (what goes on outside in external reality) are completely distinct,
with no overlap other than the interpretation by the mind of perceptual information. The study of Psychic phenomenon
operates under the belief that this assumption is not correct. Human experience and considerable anecdotal evidence
suggests that some human experience allows the subjective and objective worlds to interact and influence each other.
From a mainstream scientific perspective, these phenomena are generally considered to be anomalous because
they are difficult to explain within current scientific theories.

From the materialistic perspective, one of the foundations of the current scientific worldview, human consciousness is
nothing but an emergent property of brain processes. These processes are generated solely by the electrochemical
functioning of the brain and associated systems, and so it is absolutely dependent on it.
It adheres to the assumption that when the brain dies, so does consciousness. From this perspective,
claims of survival of bodily death, and psychic phenomena are merely a crutch for the human mind
that cannot fathom the notion the materialistic view of reality where physical reality is all there is.
Instead of non-local consciousness which assumes an expanded view of reality, of something larger than self, or something beyond oblivion when the body dies.

Even given materialist perspective, psychic phenomena have been reported in all cultures throughout history,
including the present period. In the modern era some of these phenomena have been persuasively verified
using scientific methods. Because these phenomena transcend the limits of the materialist position
on the nature of reality, one can interpret psychic phenomena as providing supporting evidence that there is
something more to consciousness mind than just the functioning brain, that there is some sort of "soul," or the like.

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